At their CES conference today, AT&T announced that Samsung’s Galaxy Note, which has been available overseas for some time, is coming to the US. For the time being, at least, the phone will be exclusively on AT&T’s 4G LTE network. There is currently no information on pricing or release date.
With the Galaxy Note, Samsung is trying to split the difference between the smartphone and the tablet. The HD Super AMOLED display measures 5.3 inches – right in the middle of the 3.5-4-inch screens of most smartphones and the 7-inch screens of many tablets. It also comes with an S Pen (i.e., a stylus), that promises somewhat finer control than users can get with a finger alone. The device also sports a 1.4 GHz dual core processor, a 2 megapixel front-facing camera and 8 megapixel rear-facing camera, HD video recording, and 16 GB of internal memory along with a microSD card slot.
While 7-inch tablets have generally done fairly well, Steve Jobs famously said that 10 inches was the bottom limit for an iPad. Anything smaller, he said, would suffer from an identity crisis – too small to be a tablet, too big to be a phone. With the Galaxy Note, Samsung has deliberately created a device with the very identity crisis Jobs worried about, and used that as a selling point. It will be interesting to see how well the device does (at least Samsung is immune to charges of copying Apple on this one). Look for more information as the reviews start to roll in. Meanwhile, check out the video below, then let us know what you think in the comments.